Donavon Frankenreiter ready to ring in 2011

In case you weren't aware -- I wasn't until I caught up with him last week -- Donavon Frankenreiter no longer lives in Orange County.

He hasn't, actually, since 2007, a year before his last album came out. But at least when Pass It Around surfaced he and his wife Petra still had a verdant, tucked-away sanctuary just off Laguna Canyon Road. They just weren't there very much.

“We were spending way more time here,” Donavon explains, “and the kids started going to school here. It's heaven on Earth for me and my family.”

He's hardly the first person to think so of Hawaii -- the beaches of Kauai, to be exact. That's where this permanently laid-back surfer-singer-songwriter sat while we killed the better part of an hour over the phone.

He had a good excuse: “It's, like, so bizarre here. It's been raining all week, and today it's, like, aqua-blue water, blue skies, perfect little waves for the kids … it's just bizarre.”

This was three days before Christmas, when around here that same storm, the one that soon gained blizzard strength and virtually shut down the Northeast, was still drowning parts of Southern California. “Yeah, I heard Laguna Beach is underwater,” he mentions. “They didn't clear the storm drains, huh?”

Doesn't sound like he misses the place much. Would you if your Christmas was spent at an island paradise?

Donavon, recently turned 38, insists the move was just sensible. “I travel so much all year long, eight months out of the year. But when I'm home, I don't do anything. I don't work. So I wanted (home) to be in a spot where I could just drive a mile north or south and get waves, go to the beach … easy living.

“It's a great place to come home to, still has a very small-town feel. Get off the road and then take a deep breath here … it's, like, unbelievable.”

Tonight, however, Donavon is back for another whiff of O.C. air, as he caps a New Year's Eve bill at the Grove of Anaheim that rounds up a few of the more notable names from the county's sun 'n' surf scene: perennial good-time favorite Sugar Ray, fellow surfing singer-songwriters Tom Curren (in what Donavon says is a rare solo acoustic set) and Timmy Curran, plus Laguna Beach's Ken Garcia Band.

He's promising “a celebration for all ages” filled with all-evening-long collaboration (“I'm gonna sit in with every band, and vice versa”) and a full-cast countdown.

“New Year's Eve is, like, an incredible night for us. I always want to play that night -- especially this year, with it falling on a Friday. A lot of energy happens on that kind of evening, so it's good to collapse into it with some music and friends and family, reflect on what you did that year.”

A Flurry of New Music

Donavon Frankenreiter definitely did more than most in 2010, releasing not one but three new discs, though the shortest of them -- the six-song Recycled Recipes 2, already out in Japan -- won't be readily available here until spring or summer.

In June, he issued Revisited, a breezily pleasing reworking of his 2004 debut that slows down and strips away its original Jack Johnson-isms, replacing them with ukulele, pedal steel and slack-key guitar. The process was so satisfying that he's planning on eventually doing likewise to all his albums.

Around the same time, still indulging a bonfire-pit-at-sunset mood, Donavon cut that second installment of his equally hushed Recycled Recipes series. For his first such EP he paid tribute to godfathers: Dylan, the Band, Dr. John, Bruce Cockburn. No. 2 finds him saluting a few more (including the Stones via “Sweet Virginia” and Paul Simon with “Slip Slidin' Away”) as well as softening and mellowing staples of his youth: INXS' “Don't Change,” Tom Petty's “American Girl,” Edie Brickell's “Circle” and Elvis Costello's (actually Nick Lowe's) “(What's So Funny 'Bout) Peace, Love and Understanding?”

Its release is being delayed here, however, so that attention can first be focused on a fourth proper album, Glow, which dropped at the start of October. As with each full-length Donavon disc, this one takes small but significant steps in fresh directions: this time, the slicker '70s grooves he explored with producer Joe Chicarelli on Pass It Around have been further polished and modernized by a newer face behind the boards, Mark Weinberg.

That isn't the only change. For the first time Donavon has introduced new songs by other writers, including the title track, co-written by Matt Nathanson -- who he still hasn't met. “So it took a while for me to figure out what that song meant to me.” Eventually its vibe -- “the more things change, the more they shine,” he says, “and how everyone gets that glow inside them at one point or another” -- took over the tenor of the album, he says.

Another first: he didn't use his regular touring players; Weinberg had his own house band he wanted to hear behind Donavon's comfortably soulful melodies and good-life homilies. That enabled the album to be recorded in just three days, after a lengthy preproduction.

“I think in those three days he got a lot more to work with than he wanted. But every day those (new) guys just powered through songs. Then I sat there on the last day and just sang as much as I could, over and over and over on all the tracks -- and then Mark just put it all together.”

That's a far more hands-off approach from a guy who just two albums ago produced himself. “But it was a really fun process to make it like that,” he insists. “If you do your homework with a producer before you go into the studio -- here are the songs, this is how they're arranged -- so you're not chasing your tail in the studio, going, ‘Ah, what should we do, should we add a chorus, should we put a bridge here?' … You know, that's when like a record can take three weeks.

“And I get burned out really quick. I'll just record a song three or four times, and then it's like, OK, we got it. It's not gonna get any better. Usually the first time we do it is the best. Like, 90 percent of the time that's exactly what Mark used: first takes.”

Another songwriter might bristle at the thought of relinquishing so much control and vision. Donavon is just the opposite, embracing outside influence and relying on others' expertise.

“When I work with a producer, to a certain extent I let him do what he wants to do. I take what I do very, very seriously, but for me to ask Mark to produce the record, then sit over his shoulder and be like, ‘I don't think you should do that' … it's, like, why even call the guy?”

Shaking a New Tambourine

Once the work is complete, however, it's completely Donavon's -- now more than ever before, as he's gone strictly independent via his own label, Liquid Tambourine.

“It got to a point,” he recalls of his career a year ago, “where it was, like, am I gonna sign another deal with a major?” (Lost Highway, which put out Move by Yourself and Pass It Around, is part of the Universal Music empire.) “And it's a lot smarter and more economical for me to go it alone.

“What's my record gonna cost -- $25,000? $50,000? I'll pay for that upfront, and I'll own my own masters -- and I'll just sign distribution deals around the world. Why would I take a loan out from Lost Highway, have them pay for the album, and do all the press and publicity and pay for that too -- and then I'm in the hole to them for $200,000? I'll never make a dime off that record, and I'm never, ever, ever gonna own the masters.

“It's a losing game. Back in the day, it made sense because record companies would make back your money, their money, and then you both actually made money. Now it's to the point where people at those labels scratch their heads wondering if they're gonna have a job for much longer.”

Donavon has watched the industry limp along virtually since he got into it. “I busted into this thing on the cusp of, like, everything melting down. If I was just now starting as a solo artist, and I didn't have one fan -- I don't know how you'd do it. It's like virtually impossible.”

The way he sees it, people make too much of the potential of today's vast online marketplace. “It totally blows out the whole idea of why even make a full-length record anymore. Nobody buys my albums. They buy one song. Ninety-nine percent of the people who have had had anything to do with Glow so far -- they've bought just ‘Glow,' the song. That happens to a lot of (artists) now: people buy two songs, fill up their playlists, then move on.”

Though it would seem Donavon simply lives a cushy Kauaian life these days, he's actually working harder than ever at being an entrepreneur. After six years of touring from bars to festivals since his debut, “I'm still just trying to get people to hear my music, give them as much as possible and see if I can reach them. I do have a built-in fan base now, and they're amazing, but you gotta give ‘em what they want -- content and a lot of it, and be different, interact with them.”

“Be their buddy,” I add.

“And I want to be their buddy! You can never be contented about where you're at with your music. If you get comfortable, the first thing that'll happen is the music world will eat you up and spit you out. You've got to keep it interesting and creative.”

Donavon Frankenreiter & Sugar Ray play Friday night at the Grove of Anaheim, 2200 E. Katella Ave. Also appearing are Tom Curren, Timmy Curran and the Ken Garcia Band. Show time is 8 p.m. Tickets are $46.55-$71.75, including fees.

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